


Nepenthe

by Umecchi



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Polyamory, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umecchi/pseuds/Umecchi
Summary: Nepenthe: (noun) described as something which can make you forget your heartache, grief or suffering.Lavi finds out that sometimes waking to a whole new world isn't so bad.





	Nepenthe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [artlover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artlover/gifts).



Lavi regains consciousness as though he is wading through a bog, weighed down by sludge, and struggling for every step. He is on a bed that dips and rings with familiarity and comfort; it’s something Lavi appreciates desperately, though he’s not sure why. He’s bracketed by heat that makes him sweat, though he still feels the urge to wrap it around himself tighter until it surrounds him, cocoons him, covers him completely.

A body is behind him, solid but soft in ways that go beyond physicality, and Lavi knows immediately it belongs to Kanda Yuu. He’s not sure how he knows it’s Kanda; he has never been able to get this close to Kanda before unless they’re fighting. He doesn’t know what Kanda is doing sleeping in Lavi’s bed, arm around Lavi’s waist, breathing short puffs of air on the back of Lavi’s neck and making his hair stand on end. He can’t quite believe it (or won’t allow himself to) because it’s impossible and wrong and . . . he can’t remember. Why can’t he remember?

“Good morning,” says the warm voice of Allen Walker.

Lavi’s eye snaps open and sees Allen’s smile, more real than the dry script of historians, and his hair, mussed magnificently with sleep. Lavi wants to mess it up further.

Lavi makes a choked sound in the back of his throat.

The arm –  _ Kanda’s _ arm – tightens around him.

“Are you alright?” Allen asks. His hand caresses Lavi’s face with a casual intimacy and Lavi thinks – Lavi  _ knows _ – this cannot be real.

“Fine, I’m – I’m fine.”

Allen looks skeptical, but all he says is, “If you’re sure. . . .”

“Yes,” Lavi lies.

“Alright,” Allen says. “You ready to get up? I’m—” his stomach growls “—hungry. . . .”

Even if the world has gone crazy (or maybe it’s just Lavi), one can always rely on Allen Walker’s stomach to cut the tension.

“I could eat.”

“You’re going to need to let me up then,” Allen says teasingly, and Lavi becomes suddenly aware that his arm is thrown across the bare, scarred, and (very) muscular plain of Allen’s torso.

“Sorry!” Lavi squeaks, snatching his arm back.

“You’re shy today,” laughs Allen. He stands up and stretches. Lavi’s eyes are guiltily riveted on the large strip of skin shown when his shirt rides up his torso.

“Get up and make me breakfast,” Allen says lightly. “It’s your turn to cook. Don’t even try to get out of it.”

Lavi feels like his brain function has slowed to the speed of a lame donkey, so he decides to just go along with whatever messed-up dream this is that his sadistic mind has concocted for him. “What do you want me to make?” he asks, utterly casual if not for the frantic beating of his heart.

“Pancakes,” Allen says decisively, then he chuckles evilly. “Bakanda doesn’t like sweet things. More for me.”

“Okay,” Lavi says. He trails Allen out of the room, through a short hallway, and into a kitchen that’s only redeeming feature is the natural light that streams in from the window above the sink.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Allen asks. “You sound out of it.”

Lavi certainly feels out of it, like cotton balls have been shoved through his ears and into his brain. He both wants and dreads that cotton being removed.

He opens a cupboard and takes out a plate.

“Just tired,” Lavi replies after a pause. “I must have slept poorly.”

Allen comes up behind him and slips his arms around Lavi’s waist. He rests his chin on Lavi’s shoulder. Lavi is torn between leaning into Allen and pushing him away. “If you’re not feeling up to it, don’t worry about breakfast.”

Lavi indulges himself and leans back. It’s wonderful. “No,” he says. “I want to make you breakfast.”

Allen hums, low and dubious. “Then you might want to turn on the burner.”

“Right,” Lavi says, and flicks on the burner.

Lavi mixes the ingredients together like it’s an out-of-body experience. His body moves through the motions like it’s something he does every day, though he can’t recall the last time he ate something that he prepared himself instead of eating Jeryy’s cooking at the Black Order or whatever’s available at the inns where he boards. Yet Lavi mixes, pours, and flips the pancakes easily, even through the haze that has descended upon him. Allen hugs Lavi from behind the entire time, running his hands languidly over Lavi’s torso. Lavi tries his best to convince himself it’s not happening.

The last pancake hits the awaiting plate, and Allen pulls away. “I’ll get the syrup and silverware,” Allen says. “You can sit down and relax.”

Lavi looks around for somewhere to sit, but there’s nothing. No stools, no dining room, and no breakfast nook.

Allen hops up on the counter beside Lavi, scooting back and sitting cross-legged. Hastily, Lavi copies him.

“Here.” Allen hands him a knife and fork. They are, apparently, going to share the plate.

With every bite, Lavi finds it harder and harder to pretend his brain isn’t slowly breaking. He can’t stomach more than a few mouthfuls of the syrup slathered pancakes before he’s unable to swallow around the panic swelling in his throat. Luckily, Allen’s appetite is more than up for the challenge: he finishes the rest of the food by himself.

“That’s better,” Allen says after he’s licked the plate clean. He gets up and puts the plate and his silverware into the sink.

Lavi sets his own knife and fork down with a deliberate  _ clack _ . “I’m insane,” he says.

“Pardon?” Allen asks.

“I’ve gone insane,” Lavi says.

“Wait, what—?”

Lavi gets off the counter and begins to pace. Now that he’s accepted his insanity, he may as well look the part. “I’ve gone insane. I’m dreaming. I’m hallucinating. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t  _ real _ .”

“Lavi!” Allen says. There is an edge of desperation to him but, paradoxically, there is also an assuredness. It's as if he knows how to handle this exact situation – as if he’s done it before.

“Don’t listen don’t listen don’t listen,” Lavi chants until the words start to blur together.

For all that Lavi loves Allen, Lavi also  _ knows _ him. Allen, whose face is the sweetest, whose heart bleeds the easiest, but whose mind is the most devious. Allen is perfectly capable of lying to him, and Lavi doesn’t trust himself not to blindly believe whatever Allen says. Lavi has seen him play poker, seen him play his friends, and even seen him play  _ himself _ with the facade of someone happy, someone . . . undamaged.

“No – Lavi, listen to me. You’re not insane – God, I  _ knew _ something was wrong – you’re not crazy, Lavi, you’re not – do not plug your—!”

Lavi plugs his ears, closes his eye, and hums to himself to drown out Allen’s voice completely.

Because he is depriving himself of the majority of his senses, it comes as a complete surprise to Lavi when he feels his hands being ripped away and his wrists held in a firm grasp. The dulcet tones of a Kanda Yuu who has been disturbed from his well-deserved rest assault Lavi’s newly restored hearing.

Lavi opens his eye and—

Kanda’s not wearing a shirt. He’s not wearing a shirt, he’s still gripping Lavi’s limp wrists, and his naked chest is flush with Lavi’s own and radiating a glorious warmth.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Lavi asks dumbly.

“What the fuck are you two freaking out about, you goddamn spazzes?” Kanda demands. He’s not yelling, not really, but his voice has taken on a loud, growly tone that usually means he’s seconds away from unsheathing Mugen.

“Kanda,” Allen sighs, and Lavi is disturbed by the relief in his voice. “Thank goodness.”

“What the fucking fuck beansprout.”

“God, what even  _ is _ your morning vocabulary?”

“ _ Why _ aren’t you wearing a  _ shirt _ ?” Lavi asks with a prepubescent tone of voice.

“Fucking tell me what the fuck is going on before I fucking stab the both of you so I can go back to fucking sleep. Fuck.”

“An eternity of beauty sleep wouldn’t help your ugly face,” Allen sneers.

“Why aren’t you wearing a FREAKING SHIRT?” Lavi shouts.

“What?” Kanda says. He lets go of Lavi’s wrists and takes a step back. “It’s too hot out to sleep with a shirt on.”

“Maybe if you’re a mutant. . .” Allen mutters.

“But—but—!”

“You’re not wearing a shirt either. Or trousers,” Kanda points out.

“Then – then why were we  _ sleeping together _ ?”

“Kanda!” Allen says suddenly, a sweet smile on his face. “Would you please go and put a shirt on?”

“The fuck? Why?”

“Nobody needs to see you expose yourself.”

Kanda’s mouth drops open. “Haaaah? What are you talking about, stupid bean? You've seen me naked!”

“My poor, innocent eyes,” Allen says mournfully. “They’ll never be the same.”

Kanda scoffs. “The only thing innocent about you is your fucking arm.”

“Don't bring Crown Clown into this!”

“I'll do what I fucking want! Just like I'll wear whatever the fuck I want in my own house!”

“Kanda!” Allen snaps.

“What!?”

“ _ Please _ just go put on a shirt and come back.”

Allen stares at Kanda meaningfully. Kanda glares back.

Allen sighs in resignation. “It’s one of the bad days,” he says.

“Fuck,” Kanda says, and blows a harsh breath through his nose.

“What are you guys talking about?” Lavi asks. “What bad days?”

“I’ll be right back,” Kanda says and leaves the room, presumably to put on a shirt.

Lavi looks at Allen. “ _ What _ bad days?”

* * *

When Kanda comes back out, Lavi has been gently herded into a sitting room that consists of a loveseat and a darkly-stained wooden coffee table. The room is already cramped before Allen pushes Lavi onto the loveseat and then takes a seat beside him.

Kanda surveys the room and sighs. He sits on the coffee table, facing towards Allen and Lavi, and looks at Lavi with a neutral expression.

“So,” Kanda says. “What do you remember last?”

“Er. . . .” Lavi looks to Allen for help.

“Don’t look at him,” Kanda says sharply. “And don’t try to help him beansprout.”

“I wasn’t going to!” Allen protests.

Kanda looks at Allen scornfully.

When he looks back at Lavi, Lavi jumps and laughs nervously. “Uh . . . I’m not sure?”

“Stupid rabbit,” Kanda mutters and rolls his eyes. “Think about it,” he drawls, folding his arms.

Lavi tries. “It was . . . after Edo? After . . . after the Noah Lulu Bell attacked and – there was another attack! Gramps and I were – we were. . .” Lavi trails off in frustration. He can’t remember.

“You were taken by the Noah,” Kanda says briskly. “During your captivity, you sustained head trauma that went untreated for too long. By the time you were recovered, there wasn’t much that could be done. You were in a coma for months, and when you woke up you didn’t remember any of your time as Lavi.

“We were told,” Kanda grounds out, “that it was possible for you to regain your memories, but after weeks and weeks . . . a lot of people stopped hoping for it.”

“But you did remember,” Allen interjects, reaching out and clasping Lavi’s hands, which had gone cold and clammy during Kanda’s report. “You remembered me and Lenalee and Komui and Miranda and even Bakanda.”

Kanda scowls at Allen, but Allen just smiles menacingly back at him. Lavi can almost feel the electrified tension; it might be animosity, but to Lavi it almost seems like they’re . . . flirting? Is he witnessing some messed-up foreplay between them?

“For a while after you remembered, things went back to normal,” Allen says.

“Only for a while?” Lavi asks, dreading the answer.

“You’ve already guessed it,” Kanda says lowly, knowingly. “You always guess it.”

“I forgot again, didn’t I.”

“Only for about a day,” Allen says, as if it’s supposed to set him at ease.

“But it happened again, a month later,” Kanda says. “And two months after that again. Sometimes you remember Lavi – or at least parts of him – but sometimes there’s only Deak.”

“You know about Deak,” Lavi says. He thinks he should feel relieved at the idea of his past being out in the open and not having to worry about censuring himself, but all he feels is a near violent revulsion.

“No no,” Allen hurriedly assures him. “Deak’s only ever stayed Deak for an hour or two before he would begin to adapt his personality into yours, just going by the information we would tell him.”

“Fucking creepy,” Kanda mutters.

Allen chuckles awkwardly. “Ha . . . yeah, a bit.”

“What about my other aliases?” Lavi demands.

“No,” Kanda says. “You never regressed that far back.”

Lavi sinks back into the loveseat cushions with relief.

“Anything else you want to know?” Allen asks, rubbing the back of his head in a sheepish manner and loosening his ponytail.

Lavi mentally tallies the many, many questions he has.

“The Holy War is over? We won?”

“Yes,” Kanda says.

“How . . . old was I? When it ended?”

“Nineteen,” Allen says. “I was eighteen. Kanda was twenty-two, the old man.”

“Look in the mirror and you’ll see who the real old man is,” Kanda says.

“Lenalee?” Lavi continues. “Where is she? And Komui?” Lavi hesitates for a moment. “And Gramps?”

“Lenalee and Komui went back to China,” Allen says, a fond smile curving his lips. “We actually planned to visit them soon – we were going to take catch a train tomorrow, to start, but it can be postponed if you’re not feeling up to it,” Allen finishes, looking at Lavi earnestly.

“No,” Lavi says softly. “No. I’d love to see Lenalee.”

“As for that old Bookman,” Kanda says, “he died during the final battle with the Noah.” His casts his eyes to the side and, stiffly, he says, “Sorry.”

Lavi looks down for a long moment. When he looks up again, it’s with tears in his eyes and a wavering smile. “Does that mean I’m the new Bookman? Or did I finally get kicked out of the clan?”

Allen’s looking at him knowingly, and it makes something catch in Lavi’s throat. “It was touch and go for a bit,” is all that Allen says, however, accepting Lavi’s deflection. “With the memory loss, nobody was sure if you could do it.”

“You still have your freaky photographic memory, though,” says Kanda. “Congratulations on passing the stupidly low standards it takes to be a Bookman.”

Lavi laughs. “Thanks Yuu.”

“Don’t  _ call _ me that,” Kanda says exasperatedly. “Are we done here? I want to go back to bed.”

“Uh, one more question,” Lavi says.

“What is it?” Kanda asks.

“Are we . . . together?” Lavi asks. “Yuu, Allen, and me?”

“Yes,” Kanda and Allen say at the same time, immediately.

“Wow,” Lavi says, shaking his head in amazement. “I . . . can’t believe that I’m actually believing this. I mean, I always fantasized that this – you guys –  _ us _ – would happen, but . . . wow.”

“You fantasized about us?” Allen says teasingly. “How embarrassing. . . .”

“We’ve been together since the end of the war, beansprout,” Kanda deadpans. “It’s been years.”

“Still. . . .”

“Wait – years?” Lavi looks from Allen to Kanda, gaping. “How many years have we been . . . you know?”

“It’s been three years since the end of the war. So, yeah, we’ve been together for three years now,” Allen confirms. “Don’t we look older than eighteen and twenty-two?”

“Your lack of growth probably confused him, beansprout,” Kanda says.

“My name is ALLEN!”

Lavi ignores the ensuing argument and studies Allen’s and Kanda’s appearances. Now that Lavi is looking for it, he can see the glaring discrepancies when comparing the Kanda and Allen in front of him to the ones in his memory. More than can be accounted for, Lavi believes, in just three years – especially with Allen.

Though not much, if at all, taller, Allen is very noticeably mature. Before, even with his hair looking like the dust that gathers on abandoned books, there was something about the curve of his cheek, the false brightness of his eyes, and the naiveté of his ideals that made him seem his age despite his life experience. Now his cheeks and jaw are defined, their sharpness accentuated by Allen’s shoulder-length hair tied back with a red ribbon in a short tail, and covered in the suggestion of stubble. He is broader in body as well; his shoulders have widened, and his torso and thighs have thickened with solid muscle. It is so different than what Lavi can remember from Allen’s fifteen-year-old self.  _ I must have been really out of it to have not noticed until now _ , Lavi thinks.

Kanda is the same height, which makes Lavi the tallest out of the three, and he looks relatively the same. His hair is even longer now, though, and his bangs have grown out enough to tuck behind his ears. The lines between his brows that seemed nearly permanent before have been erased and replaced with fainter, kinder ones that Lavi wants to believe are from smiling.

“I’m going back to bed,” Kanda declares, and interrupts Lavi’s inspection by standing up and walking back to the bedroom.

Allen smiles sinisterly and says, “I’ll tuck you in.”

Before he gets up off the loveseat and trailing after Kanda, Allen whispers to Lavi, “All your fantasies are about to come true. Follow me.”

* * *

Lavi sits, each beat of his heart reverberating through his head like a gong, before he springs to his feet. He eagerly makes for the bedroom and, on his way there, stubs his toe on a leg of the coffee table, knocks his knee into the arm of the loveseat, and almost brains himself on the low-hanging frame of the bedroom door. When Lavi gets a good look at the scene brewing in the bedroom, however, those small hurts are leached away from him, along with the breath in his lungs.

Allen and Kanda are pressed chest to chest without a sliver of space separating them. Allen stands on the tips of his toes, arms wrapped around Kanda, and hands roaming the bare expanse of Kanda’s back from beneath his shirt. Kanda has angled his head to press his face into Allen’s neck, and Lavi watches his lips move as he mouths and sucks on the skin until it’s blooming in red bursts. Kanda’s inserted his thigh between both of Allen’s and his whole body rocks sinuously with the grinding movements of his leg. His hands migrate from Allen’s shoulder blades to the small of Allen’s back and then lower. It’s shameless, even more shameless than Lavi’s gaze, the way Kanda cups Allen’s ass and kneads the flesh with strong, sure fingers.

Kanda lifts Allen’s feet clear off the floor, pivots to lower him onto the bed, and climbs on top of him. Allen tilts his chin up in invitation, the irises of his eyes slowly but surely being devoured by his pupils, and Kanda leans forward to lay his body nearly over top of Allen. His hair becomes a dark curtain that conceals his and Allen’s expressions, as if preserving the modesty neither of them have.

Lavi steps over the door’s threshold. He is being drawn in, as he so often is, by his curiosity, but also by this new, consuming desire. He wants to see what Allen and Kanda look like when they kiss, when they are both hot and hungry. He wants to see their expressions change when something feels good and when something feels  _ better _ . He wants to see what they look like, bodies reacting like they’re fighting for something, except they’re fighting for closeness, for each other, with an absence of violence.

There is a desk in the bedroom, swamped in papers and books that Lavi would be intrigued by at any other time, and it has an accompanying chair. Lavi pulls the chair out, positions it to face the bed, and sits gingerly on its edge. He has a better view now, but he still can’t see through Kanda’s hair. It feels like such a tease, and the frustration causes Lavi to bite down on his bottom lip and clutch the fabric at his knees in tight fists.

Allen puts Lavi out of his misery: he gathers up Kanda’s hair on either side of his face in two handfuls, holds them away from their faces, and gives Lavi a perfect view of how their mouths slide together and open to each other. They separate only in snatches of time, but in those small amounts of time Lavi is flooded with heat from the flashes of their tongues retreating and reconnecting.

Then Allen pulls on the hair tangling with his fingers and forcefully detaches the kiss. Kanda has no choice but to crane his neck in a way that Lavi would suspect to be uncomfortable if not for the immediate, drawn-out, and very vocal moan that is torn from Kanda’s throat when his hair gets pulled.

Allen turns his head to look at Lavi and asks, lips swollen and wet and inviting, “Are you going to join us?”

“I think I’d rather watch,” Lavi says, a little nervous but mostly certain.

“Suit yourself,” Allen says.

He turns his attention back on Kanda and releases him. They kiss again, deep and long, before Kanda pulls away and kisses his way down Allen’s neck. Allen’s hands tighten on Kanda’s shirt, and he presses down on Kanda’s groin with his thigh. Kanda bites down on Allen’s shoulder in retaliation and Allen curses, but then Kanda begins worrying the flesh between his teeth and his words devolve into groans. Kanda sucks hard, and Allen’s hips buck.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” somebody moans. It might have been Lavi.

Kanda pulls away with a wet  _ pop _ , looks Lavi directly in the eye, and grins. Lavi is left reeling with the knowledge that Kanda’s sex face is the same as his murder face.

“Voyeur,” Kanda says, voice rough and sexy.

It’s so hot, all of this is so hot, and Lavi is throbbing with it.

Kanda sits up until he’s kneeling on the bed. He grabs the hem of his shirt with both hands and, slowly enough that Lavi is certain he’s giving a show on purpose, raises it over his head. His abs are cut, and there is barely any fat on his body, but he still looks thicker than when all three of them were with the Black Order, fighting for their lives and dying for the sake of others’. His ribs aren’t so prominent now, and it softens him in unexpected ways.

Except . . . is it really so unexpected? This Kanda isn’t fighting and training everyday; there are no Akuma or Noah, no Millennium Earl or Black Order. Perhaps he’s not having to fight his own demons as much, either.

Kanda discards his shirt over the side of the bed, and no sooner than that is Allen – the biggest opportunist Lavi knows – grabbing hold of Kanda’s hips and flipping them so Allen is on top.

“Hey,” Kanda says. The complaint is only perfunctory if his total lack of resistance and the way he hooks his legs around Allen’s hips is anything to go by.

“What?” Allen says, smiling. His hands are on Kanda’s pectorals, thumbing Kanda’s nipples, before they begin to meander down.

He skims Kanda’s sides, caresses his hips, and makes Kanda sigh. Kanda is calm, placid in a way Lavi can’t remember seeing him before, and responsive. He shivers when Allen’s lips and breath brush against him; he arches lazily when Allen sticks his tongue into his bellybutton; and when Allen grabs hold of his ass and squeezes, Kanda squawks, “Allen!”

“That’s right,” Allen says smugly. “Say my name, bitch.”

“Call me that again and you won’t be alive to hear it,” Kanda threatens.

Lavi laughs, entirely unable to stop himself. He’s so turned on that if he doesn’t touch himself soon he’s sure it will become painful, but that feeling is eclipsed by the way his lungs are expanding in his chest, the way his heart is too full but unwilling to empty itself, and the way the tears in his eyes feel like happiness.  _ This is real, _ he thinks, in complete awe.  _ This is real. _

Kanda and Allen look at him.

“Well?” Lavi says. “What are we still wearing pants for?”

* * *

Afterwards, Allen and Kanda collapse together on the bed and Lavi sinks into the desk chair, boneless. Kanda appears to have fallen back to sleep, but Allen looks over at Lavi entreatingly.

“Come here,” Allen says, holding out a hand, and Lavi is helpless to refuse. He stands with knees that are weaker than he’s used to, secures his boxers around his waist, and stumbles over to the bed. When Lavi flops down next to Allen on the bed, Allen curls his limbs around him.

“Was that alright?” Allen asks, chin propped up on Lavi’s chest and grey eyes scrutinizing.

Lavi frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Kanda and I. We didn't make you feel uncomfortable, did we?”

Lavi laughs. “Are you kidding? That was . . . perfect. The best thing to ever happen to me – that I can remember.”

“Just thought I'd ask,” Allen says, all tension dropping from his face.

“So sweet to me,” Lavi coos and pinches one of Allen’s cheeks.

“Stop it,” Allen whines playfully.

“My sweetums,” Lavi continues in a cutesy voice. “My pumpkin pie honey bun.”

“Shut up,” Allen whispers, voice shaking with laughter. “We’ll wake Kanda!”

“But snookums—” Lavi manages to get out before Allen shuts him up by kissing him, and Lavi forgets why he was talking in the first place.

It’s abrupt and ever so slightly rough, Lavi’s and Allen’s lips not quite syncing up, but after the first kiss it’s as if a pillar of self control in each of them crumbles, and the many subsequent kisses become more and more gentle. More and more intimate.

Lavi’s hand is on Allen’s cheek, the same cheek he pinched only moments ago. Lavi caresses Allen’s cheekbone with his thumb and tucks errant strands of Allen’s white hair behind the shell of Allen’s ear. They kiss with only their lips, slow and languorous, but the heat between them grows steadily.

Breathlessness and contentment is what stops them from escalating things further. Long kisses turn into brief pecks or simple presses of lips until, finally, Allen sighs against Lavi’s mouth and, without pulling away, murmurs, “I’m hungry again.”

Lavi laughter bubbles out of him, hard enough that tears try to sneak out from the corners of his eyes.

“You’re always hungry,” he says. “Just go grab a snack and come back to bed.”

“There’s no more food in the kitchen. The pancakes were pretty much the only thing left, unless you want me to eat the cheese with sentient mould growing on it,” Allen says.

“Should probably just eat out,” Lavi decides, turning to face Kanda and reaching out to play with his hair.

“Probably,” Allen agrees, already getting to his feet. “Do you want to grab some lunch with me?”

_ Yes _ , Lavi is about to say.  _ I absolutely want to go on a date with you _ . Except before he can get the words out, Kanda rolls over onto his side and curls his entire body into Lavi, arm going around Lavi’s waist, and Lavi’s entire being freezes. Kanda Yuu, the prickliest cactus in the world (emphasis on  _ prick _ ), is cuddling Lavi in his sleep. Lavi knows what a weighty privilege he’s just been afforded; he stares at Allen, wide-eyed and helpless, and Allen smirks.

“Unless you already have plans. . .” Allen teases.

“I have been chosen,” Lavi whispers reverently, and cautiously puts his arm around Kanda to pull him closer.

“I’ll see you when I get back, then,” Allen says from the doorway, looking fondly back at Lavi and Kanda.

“Have fun,” Lavi says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Allen says. “Make sure to cuddle Kanda while I’m gone.”

“Already on it,” Lavi says cheekily to Allen’s back. He hears Allen fumble around: the thunk of boots, the jangle of keys, until, eventually, the muffled thump of the front door closing.

Kanda inches closer (“Strike,” Lavi whispers, with feeling), and his head ends up being snugly fit into Lavi’s neck. Lavi takes immediate advantage of their position to burrow his nose in Kanda’s hair and take a deep breath. He continues to do this until, somewhere between one breath and the next, he falls asleep.

* * *

When Lavi wakes, he opens his eyes to find Kanda face only inches away from his and staring right at him. Lavi flinches in surprise, but calms down in the next second with an airy laugh. He and Kanda are in the same position Lavi remembers falling asleep in, and Lavi is almost ridiculously comfortable if he doesn’t include the arm Kanda is using as a pillow that’s gone numb.

“Morning,” Lavi greets, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.

“We smell disgusting,” Kanda says, and sits up on the bed. He stands and begins heading towards the bathroom adjoining the bedroom. “I’m going to take a bath,” he states. “I feel gross.”

Lavi props himself up on the bed with his elbow and watches Kanda go wistfully.

In the doorway, Kanda looks over his shoulder at Lavi with an eyebrow raised expectantly and says, “Are you coming or not?”

Lavi is on his feet and in the bathroom in an instant.

The bathroom is windowless and dim. It gives off the feeling of being comprised of shadows overlain with even more, darker shadows, and it makes the baroque wallpaper look like thorned, forbidding vines. Kanda is at the bathtub, which is a worn but clean porcelain with clawed-feet that are a tarnishing copper. He twists the taps and water gushes out, clear and not yet beginning to steam, before dousing two washcloths under the stream and silently handing one off to Lavi.

Waiting for the tub to fill, Kanda and Lavi use the damp washcloths to wash away the old, sticky sweat and other, dried substances that linger from their previous activities. While wiping himself down, Lavi catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the sink basin.

His hair is the same length as he remembers, maybe a little longer, and his facial structure isn’t significantly altered. The most striking change, to Lavi at least, is that the shadows that hung perpetually low beneath his eyes are absent, and how this fills his face with more vitality and makes his smile appear more honest. He lifts a hand to his face and skims his fingers along his jawline, catching the rough beginnings of stubble. The whole effect of his changed appearance, no matter how small the changes are, make Lavi look and even feel like an adult living an honest and good life. To his faulty memory, Lavi has never tried to imagine what he would look like in the future, for multiple reasons: it simply didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and he probably wouldn’t live long enough to be an adult anyway.

Looking at himself now, at this impossible dream he never allowed himself to dream, Lavi isn’t sure what he’s feeling, he just knows that it’s a feeling he would willingly drown himself in.

“Bath’s ready,” Kanda says after the sound of flowing water is cut off, and Lavi tears his eyes away from the mirror, laughing at himself slightly. He must look as vain as the tragic Greek figure Narcissus, obsessed with and riveted by his own reflection.

Much more riveting is the sight of Kanda, naked and dipping his leg into the steaming bath. The water swallows up a foot in a gulp, then the sharp bone of his ankle, and the meat of his calve. Kanda’s other leg receives the same treatment. Once Kanda is sitting, arms lying propped on the rim of the tub and the water lapping leisurely at his chest, he lets out a long sigh. He tilts his head back and basks, eyes closed and lashes fluttering against the very tops of his cheekbones. Kanda’s face is so smooth and his countenance so relaxed that Lavi hesitates to join him, afraid to disturb Kanda in any way, but in the end it becomes too tempting for Lavi to resist.

Lavi steps into the tub and, without pause and before he can talk himself out of it, he sits facing the same direction as Kanda and settles against Kanda’s chest. He half-expects Kanda to complain about Lavi using him as a backrest or make Lavi sit against the opposite end of the tub, but he doesn’t say a word. With Kanda’s unspoken permission, Lavi unwinds and lets himself fully enjoy the bath.

“This is nice,” Lavi hums.

“Yeah,” Kanda says.

After a few minutes of just soaking together, Kanda begins to cup water in his hands and pour each handful over Lavi’s head and slowly, bit by bit, wetting his hair. Once Lavi’s hair is weighed down and sticking to his forehead and neck, Kanda produces a bar of soap and rubs it between his hands. When the amount of suds is deemed acceptable, Kanda lathers it in Lavi’s hair and starts massaging Lavi’s scalp until Lavi melts into a groaning puddle of contentment between Kanda’s thighs.

“Does this mean I get to wash your hair too?” Lavi asks, so relaxed that he’s finding it hard to summon energy even to raise his chest with every breath.

Kanda scoffs. “As if. You’d end up trying to braid it and then I’d have to kill you.”

“You wouldn’t kill me, Yuu,” Lavi says. “It wouldn’t fit the mood.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kanda grumbles, but he doesn’t deny it.

“Hey,” Lavi says quietly, after a moment where the only sounds to be heard is the swishing of cooling bath water and the heavenly scratch of Kanda’s nails against Lavi’s scalp. “Is it really alright with you that I forget? That I can’t remember how old we are, or how the war ended, or . . . or how we got together?”

Kanda stops kneading Lavi’s scalp and removes his hands to smooth them down Lavi’s shoulders and chest to rest against Lavi’s fluttering stomach.

“We all forget stuff,” Kanda finally says. “It’s just lucky that your stuff comes back.”

Lavi twists his torso around in the tub to face Kanda and kisses him, unable to adequately put into words the overwhelming gratitude he’s feeling. Lavi thinks Kanda probably prefers this type of communication – messy and physical and ironically dirty when their location is considered – over any earnest declaration Lavi could make.

Lavi is just about ready to turn around fully and straddle Kanda’s waist when the bathroom door opens.

Allen steps through, trying to look scandalized, and says, “Well well.”

“Well what?” Kanda challenges.

“ _ Well _ ,” Allen says, “I’m away for a measly three hours to partake in a light seven-course lunch and I return to find that you two scoundrels couldn’t wait that long so we could have a bath all together.” Allen makes sure his eyes look extra sad to offset the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “ _ Well _ ,” he says again, “I’m just going to have to join the both of you anyway.”

Next thing Lavi knows, Allen is climbing into the bath fully clothed and already laughing. He laughs at Kanda’s protests and his own clumsiness when he slips in the bath and falls against Lavi, who falls against Kanda, who ends up thoroughly squished. Lavi laughs with him, the silliness and joy infecting him easily.

“Get out you lunatic sprout!” Kanda yells, trying to push Lavi and Allen off him.

“This is your own fault for having a romantic bubble bath without me,” Allen says.

“What bubbles?” Kanda asks, outraged. “There are no bubbles!”

“So the bubbles I see in Lavi’s hair are a lie then?”

“That’s soap you dumbass!”

Lavi splashes both Kanda and Allen in the face to halt their argument and declares, “Water fight!”

All three are drenched in minutes. It is particularly noticeable with Allen, who is not appropriately dressed (or, in this case, undressed) to be having water fighting in the bath. The floor is also flooded, no doubt, and will have to be mopped up, but as Lavi resettles against Kanda with the new addition of Allen sitting across from him but leaning forward far enough that he may as well be lying right on top of Lavi, the thought of future tasks is barely a niggling in the back of his mind. He is too happy and content and  _ blessed _ to care about anything but where he is right at this moment.

Kanda is behind him, solid and real, and Allen is in front of him, looking at Lavi with what Lavi is almost confident enough to say is love.

Allen opens his mouth and for a moment Lavi imagines him voicing the feelings that Lavi sees in his eyes. What he actually says dashes that fanciful hope violently.

“Wisely,” Allen says.

To Lavi, it feels as if his lungs are collapsing and ants are skittering across his skin. He tries to speak but nothing comes out.

“Wisely,” Allen repeats, but it’s not his voice, “that’s enough.”

That voice. It’s foreign but familiar, firm but fracturing. It is Lavi that the voice fractures, and along with him the world that Lavi’s come to know as reality. The world breaks down into fractals in an instant, like a large shard of glass shattering into smaller and smaller shards until all that’s left is sand that sticks in Lavi’s eye and the dust of his false dreams.

Instead of lounging in a bathtub, Lavi is sitting in a wide, plush brown chair. There’s no rope tying him down, yet he still finds himself unable to move an inch. He can’t even wiggle a toe. His chest hurts like he’s burning from the inside out, he’s struggling to take in air, and he can only barely eke out the energy to raise his head to observe his surroundings.

There is nothing but darkness for walls and ceiling and floor, and even the company represents their own kind of darkness: the Noah – Wisely, Sheryl, Tyki, and one sitting on the back of Lavi’s chair that he can’t see to identify – stand before Lavi. Except they’re supposed to be dead, because the Holy War is over and done and, most importantly,  _ won _ .

“He’s a bit slow for a Bookman,” Wisely says boredly. “He still thinks what I showed him was true. I thought Bookmen were supposed to be interested in fact, not fiction.”

“Wh-what?” Lavi manages to stammer. “It wasn’t . . . real?”

“All fake,” Wisely drawls. “I made it up and put it in your head. You put up a decent fight at the start, but gave in pretty quick when I explained everything away with amnesia.”

“All . . . fake,” Lavi echoes. Images of Allen and Kanda bickering, kissing each other, and kissing  _ him  _ flash in his mind’s eye before they evaporate.

“Oh look,” Wisely says drolly, “he’s crying.”

“Both of you be quiet!” Sheryl snaps, turning to Bookman, who sits right beside Lavi, in a chair exactly like Lavi’s, and stares grimly into Sheryl’s eyes. Lavi only just registers Bookman’s presence. “Do you see, Bookman? Do you see what we can reduce you to? What we can reduce  _ him _ to?” Sheryl says, yellow eyes empty and mad. “Now spit it out, Bookman. Tell me what the relationship is between my Road and the Fourteenth.”

Bookman says nothing.

Sheryl lets out a wordless noise of rage and thrusts a hand out in Lavi’s direction. Lavi is sent flying back, upturning his chair and colliding with a wall hiding in the darkness behind him with enough force to crack both the stone and Lavi’s ribs. Lavi cries out and pretends that his tears begin to flow faster because of the pain.

“Lavi!” Bookman – Gramps – shouts.

“Gramps,” Lavi chokes out. “Don’t . . . don’t. . . .” Even Lavi’s not sure what he’s trying to say.

“You  _ will  _ tell me,” Sheryl says ominously.

Lavi coughs in the silence and tastes blood in his mouth.

“Wisely,” Sheryl orders sharply. “Again.”

“One fake paradise coming right up,” Wisely says, and another one of Lavi’s worlds disintegrates.


End file.
